Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Time has come to an end. Was a heck of a story line, No spoilers here, though spoilers at the link above. If you have not yet seen this massive, 3999 frame slow motion silent movie, you owe it to yourself to http://geekwagon.net/projects/xkcd1190/">watch the rerun at your own pace.
I must admit the real explaination- and what genre the story line is- fooled even me.

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Who doubts the theological reality of consent. That's what this massive (it will take you hours to read it) article boils down to. Those who claim that the only sexual ethic is "consenting adults" are really lying to us- they don't believe in sexual ethics at all.

Simply Organic Peppermint Flavored Oil is available at Freddy's and at Kroger. It's really a mix of Peppermint Oil and Sunflower Oil, so it's pretty high calorie, but for flavoring, it doesn't take much at all. Two drops to 24 oz of water and ice, makes for a great drink that you'll spend more calories drinking than get from the drink.

The older I get, the more I realize how even when I was a college kid, adults were trying to hide Church Teaching from me. I was very young when Humanae Vitae came out and was practically censored by the Baby Boomers, but I was 22 my chapter of the Newman Center was downright pushing homosexuality- we were participating in vigils for _The Body of Christ has AIDS_ and we were inviting prominent gays to talk, even as a strong group of fundamentalists was taking control of the city government and doing such odious things as banning public school teachers from talking about homosexuality at all, encouraging the DA not to prosecute assault and battery cases related to homosexuality, and of course busing all the homeless people to Medford before winter set in and we had to witness people camping in the snow (Winter in Klamath Falls lasts pretty much from November to June, there ain't no such thing as spring there).

Heck, if I had read this document, it might have kept me Catholic at a time in my life I was struggling. But I didn't, because of course, the worship of the Holy Orgasm meant that according to those who had lived through the sexual revolution, the Church was always wrong on sex.

Because I know the conversation at Public Catholic is drifting outside of Rebecca Hamilton's comfort zone, and because Bill S. does comment here from time to time, I'm going to pick up our conversation where we left off with a couple of comments from Bill that I expect to disappear soon:

I disagree. Any or all of Catholicism can be false. Yet, people will benefit from following its rules, regardless of whether its teachings are true or not. Otherwise, Catholicism would not be where it is today.

Like with science, the test of the rules are IF THEY WORK. Do they provide an accurate picture of human behavior that can be used for prediction? At one point in my journey, when I was drifting away from the Church, I would have said no, they don't provide an accurate enough picture, even merely for allowing people to benefit from those teachings.

Several experiences, particularly with the virtue of Chastity and violations thereof, have convinced me otherwise, so completely that I'm willing to say that no, Catholicism can't be false. The final clue though, for me, was in Nostra Aetate, at the end of the fifth paragraph in section 2, when it is giving a discussion on how the Church views morality, and I suddenly realized that this is where science started, and that theology really is the King of all Science.

There are myths that have no historical truth to them but work nonetheless because people believe them and/or learn from them.

Truth is bigger than history. In more high theology terms- dogma is truth, doctrine is what we can discover about dogma through the light of human reason and the historical perspective, and MYTH IS DISCIPLINE.

A long time ago I read a novel written by an anti-Catholic, a story about an archeologist who claimed to disprove the Resurrection because he had found the body of Jesus. The hoax was exquisite- it even included using ashes found in a campfire in a different dig on the same era to create an ink that would carbon date correctly.

That novel forced me to ask myself the question- does the Resurrection really matter to my Catholicism? Like my earlier tussle with the concept of Hell, in which I came up with the confounding phrase I've often used since then on fundamentalists and atheists alike "If my Lord Jesus Christ decides that I should go to Hell for His Glory, then I shall gladly go", I decided no, the historical event of the Resurrection, while I'm pretty sure it did happen due to eyewitness evidence maintained even under torture and certain death, really doesn't mean that much to my faith. It could be a myth created by the Essenes to promote their version of Jewish Gnosticism, and it would still contain all of the lessons that I need to learn from it about self-sacrifice and perseverance. As a Knight of Columbus, I took an oath to carry the cross- but if that cross is just a metaphor, does it really change what I need to do in charity? No, it doesn't.

Katholikos means universal. If there is any hope for a universal morality at all, it must be rational as well as believeable. NONE of the competitors that I've studied so far, and there have been many, hold a candle to Catholicism as far as rationality is concerned, as far as universality is concerned. Atheism comes close, but as we're learning in the third world, isn't universal enough. Other forms of Christianity are equally faith based, but aren't rational enough, and with 32,000 competing theologies, aren't universal enough. Buddhism is the next closest- but just like Christ summed up the ten commandments into two, I can sum up the eightfold path into "expect bad things to happen, and you'll always be right".

Only Catholicism embraces the radical theology that eventually became the scientific method, to become truly universal, and so with Pope Paul VI I must proclaim

Likewise, other religions found everywhere try to counter the restlessness of the human heart, each in its own manner, by proposing "ways," comprising teachings, rules of life, and sacred rites. The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. Indeed, she proclaims, and ever must proclaim Christ "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.

We've got myth and morality mixed up. Myth is a method to teach morality; morality itself is rooted in concrete human experience. But for some reason, the myth of secularism is that the myth is the cause of the morality, and thus, to eliminate the myth and force the child to grow up, you must force him to invent his own morality.

An interesting concept just came up, one I disagree with, but interesting none the less.

Late term abortions, are usually really euthanasia.

That is, the majority of time they're on non-viable fetuses, or at least, fetuses that are seen to have a less than ideal life. They are done, primarily, on the physically unfit.

Now of course, that line gets somewhat blury, for none of us can accurately see the future. Euthanasia should always be opposed for precisely that reason- because even a diagnosis can be wrong. And that's why late term abortions for something "medically wrong" with the fetus should also be opposed- because it's a final solution for a not very finite problem.

Still, it never occurred to me to look at these types of abortions-because-of-prenatal-diagnosis as Euthanasia before- and it does make for an interesting side discussion. Can even Kermit Gosnell's and Douglas Karpan's infanticide be considered a form of Euthanasia? I think so. Certainly in their minds it was- they were killing those infants accidentally born alive, they even treated lower class women badly, because they didn't see such people as having a viable future.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

I find it really interesting when people put down Catholicism as mere opinion, then put forth some suspect science as "reality" with the only proof being that it is "new". Reminds me of Stanford Nutting:

Then you need to run away. There is no point in worshiping a God that demands nothing of you and does not challenge you to change. Heck, there's no point in denying God exists if that life demands nothing of you and does not challenge you to change.

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

I've poked fun at the concept of homophobia before. I'm pretty sure it is a made up illness for the most part.

Except for one extremely deadly variety: Homophobic Panic. That's when due to obsessing over homosexuals, a young man, already full of testosterone and as another blogger recently put it, that devil on the shoulder whispering that violence is the solution to what to have for lunch, gets paranoid about somebody who isn't even likely gay, being a gay rapist.

This of course leads to a gay bashing incident- and if the "gay" being bashed is armed like George Zimmerman was, it can be a deadly, deadly error.

Monday, July 22, 2013

And in hopes of better maintaining comments and responding to them on this site, sometime in the next 24 hours all comments will be imported to Disqus and Disqus will become the main commenting engine for this page.

Violent behavior and paranoia reigned high in what we know ofthe decision making process of both Trayon Martin and George Zimmerman.

Is it possible that the destruction of the family- big in the mind of both, as Trayon's parents were divorced and Zimmerman had recently dealt with a breakin at the home of a single mother- is the cause of this?

Jesus said "I am the Truth.", and it is your duty and mine to speak the truth. Then it is up to the person who hears it whether to accept it or reject it.--Mother Theresa of Calcutta

Many people didn't accept her truth- that helping somebody die well doesn't mean euthanasia and it doesn't mean big expensive heroic measures keeping the body alive like a robot either.

This atheist gives us a hint of how horrific dying in the hospital has really become, and this article shows us how doctors die. And it isn't by highly expensive drugs, and it is rarely by suicide. It is with the help of massive doses of morphine, however.

The one good thing about the Euthanasia law in Oregon is that the Catholics, Lutherans, and Seventh Day Adventists have stepped up with excellent levels of hospice care. I once read an article on nutrition for geriatric patients- there comes a time in life where all of our common wisdom about nutrition is entirely reversed- where "what is nutritious and low calorie for volume" is replaced with "what tastes good and is high calorie for volume". Sometimes, comfort is more important than health.

But that isn't what this article was supposed to be about. What this article was really supposed to be about was that I need to learn to let go of other people- it is NOT my fault if they reject the truth.

I've often been criticized for my critique of the baby boomer generation, which brought us both the sexual revolution and the trade of debt instruments, but this is the first thing I've seen from the Church that would agree with that assessment.

Amnesty International vs 11 year old Rape Victim- AI wants Chile to overturn their very restrictive no-abortion-in-any-circumstances law. But the victim herself doesn't want an abortion! So much for pro-choice.

The Year after Roe Vs Wade, Dr. Nathanson, before he converted, as an atheist, on a level of science, wrote this paper. This was the beginning of his conversion. He would not film this for another 10 years:

He would not convert to Catholicism for 20 more years, though he did before his death. It would be two years before he wrote his book _Aborting America_ which was the end of his conversion to pro-life.

His work was utterly attacked of course, especially his ultrasound and eye scope films of abortions, both _The Silent Scream_ and _Eclipse of Reason_:

Dr. Nathanson's work has been censored often. Pro-choicers can't be bothered to look at it, calling it absolute emotional drivel.

Which is why, by the scientific method, it is all the more important to look at it from a scientific perspective.

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

This goes right along with his previous offering, The Grapes of Wrath:

I'm not sure about the connection to Obamacare, unless that's an offhand reference to the way WalMart depends on socialized medicine and food instead of actually, gasp, providing their employees with a large enough wage to live on.

Notice the web address in this link is not a Catholic organization. It's the Center For Disease Control. I'm sure to some, this conclusion is homopobia- but to those who know that data is not the plural of anecdote, the evidence is overwhelming.

Thanks to Sarah's theories, I have better language for my redefinition- really a replacement Rape Myth.

So here goes. Under the idea that beneficial sexism can go both ways, rape is the use of another person for sexual lust divorced from procreation or commitment to the other individual.

In fact, merely feeling lust for another human being that you do not or cannot procreate with, is a sign that you might become a rapist if you are not careful.

In addition to this, procreation in this case means not just having the baby- but in fact staying together to raise that child to full adulthood.

This means that up to 35 years after the incident- a divorce (legal or common separation) can turn all the sex you've had with that person into rape.

It means contracepting couples are practicing a form of mutual rape.

It means that the victim can never be directly blamed for the rape- it is YOUR job to control YOUR lust.

And yes, it means I have no room in this for non-romantic, non-procreative sex.

And Sarah's response to this was to call me a troll- so therefore clearly she isn't as into diversity as she claims.

-----

Edit:
After many months of arguing this, I've had a satori on this subject:

Contraception indicates a lack of consent on the part of one or both partners, because it denies the procreative aspect of sex. Since denial of consent is implied in the use of birth control, that turns sex into rape.

This links it all back together, and closes the circular reasoning that is indicative of all moral reasoning.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

An interesting interview from Peter Kreft where he claims that Christians have become sheep- too tolerant, so without principles that the future MUST belong to either the Islamics or the Homosexuals. Nobody else is willing to fight to the death for their identity.

The Crusades are often derided in modern European multicultural sensitivities. It is forgotten that they were wars of retaliation, that Islam invaded historically Christian and Jewish lands *before* the Crusades. But did the original Islamic invasion preserve a remnant of Hellenistic thought that became our modern scientific era, only because the Crusades took it back before the anti-science Ottoman Empire had a chance to destroy it?

I miss that Oregon. America can go hang, and while Tom McCall is who started the conversation on euthanasia I miss his "Come to Oregon to visit but don't stay" attitude. Especially now that Californicators and other out-of-staters are 55% of the voting public because they have a vacation home here and spend enough time here to qualify as residents.

That's my problem right there. I need to pray for more patience. I thought I was doing pretty good, but I'm really worn down as of late. I am almost convinced that the only way out for rural 'gonies is going to have to be seccession. Let the liberals have Portland and Eugene, we need red state Oregon back- and make the official language Chinook again.

- Since gays are allowed to adopt children or become custodial parents of children (because liberals want to deny the testimony of people like http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/author/robert-oscar-lopez/">Robert Lopez
who has collected a very large body of admitedly annecdotal evidence suggesting that perhaps being raised by two people of the same gender who have no sexual morality might not be the best environment for a child)
- http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/05/10034/">We must legalize gay marriage
for the adopted children to be able to pretend their family isn't broken (the family that the state broke to begin with by allowing gay adoption and homosexuals to become the custodial parent)
- So that we can pretend that the children will be all right, despite us having *directly* http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/08/6065/">deprived them of the opposite sex parent.

And this is what passes for logic in the people who run our country, circular as it is. We've destroyed the lives of children for the pleasure of adults, and we must keep the adults happy so that we don't further damage the children.